In many industrial applications, chemical reagents and compositions are required to be supplied in a high purity state, and specialized packaging has been developed to ensure that the supplied material is maintained in a pure and suitable form, throughout the package fill, storage, transport, and ultimate dispensing operations.
In the fields of microelectronic device and display panel manufacturing, the need for Suitable packaging is particularly compelling for a wide variety of liquids, since any contaminants in the packaged material, and/or ingress of environmental contaminants to the contained material in the package, can adversely affect the microelectronic device and display panel products that are manufactured with such liquids, rendering the resulting products deficient or even useless for their intended use.
As a result of these considerations, many types of high-purity packaging have been developed for liquids used in microelectronic device and display panel manufacturing, such as photoresists, etchants, chemical vapor deposition reagents, solvents, wafer and tool cleaning formulations, chemical mechanical polishing compositions, color filtering chemistries, overcoats, liquid crystal materials, etc.
One type of high-purity packaging that has come into such usage includes a rigid, substantially rigid, or semi-rigid container (also known as an overpack) containing a liquid in a flexible liner or bag that is secured in position in the overpack by retaining structure such as a lid or cover. Such packaging is commonly referred to as “bag-in-can” (BIC), “bag-in-bottle” (BIB) and “bag-in-drum” (BID) packaging. Packaging of such general type is commercially available (e.g., under the trademark NOWPak®) from Advanced Technology Materials, Inc. (Danbury, Conn., USA).
Preferably, a liner comprises a flexible material, and the surrounding (e.g., overpack) container comprises a wail material that is substantially more rigid than said flexible material. Rigid or semi-rigid containers of the packaging may be formed (for example) of high-density polyethylene, or other polymer or metal, and the liner may be provided as a pre-cleaned, sterile collapsible bag of a polymeric film material, such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), tow-density polyethylene, medium-density polyethylene, PTFE-based laminates, polyamide, polyester, polyurethane, or the like, selected to be inert to the material (e.g., liquid) to be contained in the liner. Multilayer laminates comprising any of the foregoing materials may be used. Examples of liners comprising multi-layer laminates are disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0212071 A1, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein. Exemplary materials of construction of a liner further include: metalized films, foils, polymers/copolymers, laminates, extrusions, co-extrusions, and blown and cast films. Liner-based packaging of such general type is commercially available under the trademark NOWPAK from Advanced Technology Materials, Inc.
In use of liner-based packaging to dispense liquids and liquid-based compositions, a liquid or liquid-containing composition is commonly dispensed from the liner by connecting a dispensing assembly including a dip tube or short probe to a port of the liner, with the dip tube being immersed in the contained liquid. Fluid (e.g., gas) pressure is applied to the exterior surface of the liner (i.e., in the space between the liner and a surrounding container) to progressively collapse the liner and thereby force liquid through the dispensing assembly for discharge to associated flow circuitry to flow to an end-use tool or site. Such operation may be called liner-based pressure dispensing. Use of a liner containing a liquid to be dispensed prevents direct contact with pressurized fluids, such as gases, arranged to exert pressure against the liner.
Headspace (extra air or gas at the top of a liner) and microbubbles present challenges for liquid dispensing from liner-based packages, including contexts such as flat panel display and integrated circuit manufacturing. Headspace gas may derive from the filling operation, in which the package is less than completely filled with the liquid. Less than complete filling of the package has been employed in certain contexts in order to provide a headspace as an expansion volume to accommodate changes in the ambient environment of the package, such as temperature changes that cause the liquid to expand during transport of the package to a location where the package will be placed in dispensing operation.
A liner-based pressure dispense container is typically filled at a chemical fill facility. The container is typically formed of stainless steel and has a unitary chime extending around the upper circumference of the container. After such a container is filled, such container is typically sealed with a membrane, cap, and/or other closure, and shipped to a point of use, typically a processing facility. At the point of use, an end user couples the container with a dispense head preconnected to process equipment and arranged to permit addition of pressurizing gas to an interstitial space between the liner and the container, and to permit a liquid-containing composition to be extracted from the liner. The dispense head extends upwardly from the top and the uppermost portion of the fitting of the container and above the chimes of the container.
Certain liquids (e.g., for display panel and microelectronic device manufacturing) are highly sensitive to oxygen and/or moisture, and may be subject to spoilage or reduced shelf life due to exposure to oxygen or moisture and the processes that utilize such materials are compromised. Conventional use of liner-based pressure dispense containers subject to ingress of air (e.g., including water vapor) at multiple intervals—i.e., during filling or sealing, during shipment, and/or at the time of coupling to a dispense head. It would be desirable to minimize such exposure with procedures and apparatus. Improvements are always sought in reducing complexity of componentry, reduction of manufacturing costs, and increasing the robustness, durability, and cleanliness of containers and dispense heads.
In other instances, liquids used in processing can be very odorous, often very unpleasant to smell, in some cases harmful. In such instances it would be desirable to eliminate or minimize the exposure of such liquids with the ambient environment so that fumes and spillages do not happen or are minimized.